Gun legislation

Unfortunately, the latest Department of Justice statistics are not available to me, but those compiled in 2001 of Firearm Use by Offenders reveals that perhaps banning semi-automatic and military-style automatic weapons may not be the only needed change in gun laws.

According to the report, in 1997 only a combined 8% of State and Federal inmates reported using semi-automatic or military-style automatic weapons in the commission of their crimes. Far more telling is how handguns used in crimes by State and Federal inmates were obtained. Of those used by 1997 State inmates, a combined total of 13.9% were purchased from retail stores, pawnshops, flea markets and gun shows; while of 1991 Federal inmates, 20.8% were purchased from the same sources.

The frightening statistic is that nearly half of the remaining guns that were not purchased illegally, were purchased from friends and family. This roughly 40 percent of guns in the State and Federal categories for each of two different years, which were sold into the hands of criminals who committed crimes, including homicide, seems to me just as frightening as the statistic of the 8% who used semi-automatic and military-style guns.

I certainly don't pretend to know the solution, but believe this is a question which must be raised just as much as that of mental health when it comes to gun laws.

Stefan Janis 

The recent decision by gun enthusiasts to declare inauguration day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend the occasion for a National Gun Appreciation Day should give one pause. There are no racial overtones to the mass killings committed with guns during President Obama's term in office. Even the killings that took place in the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, were deemed not to be a hate crime. So the action by the gun enthusiasts begs the question of whether there is some John Birch Society residue in the guns of those who have chosen this weekend, of all weekends, as the time to show their appreciation of guns. It is a very disturbing message this group of gun enthusiasts are sending to the Afro-American population of this country, a message which I find deplorable in its racist overtones. They seem to be sending a message reminding the President of his mortality, a message that, in the worse case scenario, if acted upon by some Caucasian assassin--whether mentally ill or not--could plunge this country into a civil war. At the very least, the choice of timing is tasteless and the manner in which this event will be organized, leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The display of fireworks in New York City requires a commissioner to oversee safety. Who and how will safety be overseen on a national event of appreciation by gun owners? And how tasteless is it that in the wake of the Newtown massacre, gun sales are soaring? Somewhere, a historian is thinking of writing a book titled, "The Rise and Fall of the American Republic."